A Week of Wishes
by Jorja-Fan23
Summary: GSR Do wishes on stars really come true? NEW CHAPTER 7, complete!
1. Default Chapter

**Title:  A Week of Wishes**

**Author:  annefishermn@yahoo.com**

**Feedback:  YES PLEASE!!!**

**Disclaimer:  I don't own the characters, I'm not making any money from this, please don't sue…**

**MONDAY 2:58am**

Sara dove into the pool, the crisp cool water, cooling her skin. She surfaced almost halfway down the pool, and began swimming slow, leisurely laps. She had the pool completely to herself. That was not a big surprise; it was three in the morning and the pool was supposed to close at eleven. But as long as she was quiet enough she doubted that her apartment manager would notice or even care. It was her night off, and she was bored out of her mind. She would be at the lab working anyway, but she was maxed out on overtime and Grissom sent her home, despite her protests. She hated her nights off. It always seemed that the quiet nights came when she least wanted them. She had spent the first several hours inside listening to her police scanner. Maybe if a big enough call came in she would be able to go in and work for a while. 

Sara stopped swimming and turned to float on her back in the middle of the pool. She looked up at the night sky, and let her mind wander. The lights from the strip made it hard to see very many stars, but it was a clear night and she could pick out a few constellations: Orion's belt, Cassiopeia, the big dipper. Maybe if she sat here long enough she would see a shooting star. 'Hmm,' thought Sara, 'what would I wish for?' She turned over and resumed swimming laps in the pool. There were lots of things to wish for: a promotion, the freedom to work as much overtime as she wanted, the ability to clear her mind of thoughts she didn't want to think, so many choices. Oh what fun it would be to have a magic wand and be able to go back in time and change things. For example, she could go back in time and make herself not ask out Grissom. What a mistake that turned out to be. She really never thought that she would be turned down. They had been flirting for three years. Why did he say no? Was the idea of going out to diner with her truly that revolting? She pulled herself out of the pool and walked over to the chair where she had left her towel and began drying off. These last few months at work had been strained. He seemed to be so uncomfortable even being in the same room with her. It had been a long time since he had assigned them to work on a case together. 'Of course I ruined our friendship,' Sara thought bitterly as she walked up the stairs and back into her apartment. 'I ruin everything. I'm not exactly a people person.' When she entered her apartment, Sara went straight for the shower, eager to try and wash the past away.

************

Grissom walked into his office and shut the door behind him before he sunk into his chair and laid his head in his hands.  He had just spent the last two hours with the sheriff dodging his questions about a variety of subjects.  Sometimes he really wished that he could go back to just being a supervisor and leave the whole running of CSI thing to someone else.  'How nice it would be to be invisible whenever I felt the desire to disappear.' He thought to himself as he absentmindedly ruffled through some long overdue paperwork on his desk.  He picked out some of the most urgent paperwork.  He glanced over the file; a jealous husband killed his mistress when he found out that she was cheating on him, such irony.  The case was going to court next week.  As far as Grissom was concerned, he was still ahead of schedule.  He decided to go outside and get some fresh air before he attempted to catch up on paperwork.  'How odd it is that love and lust can change otherwise normal people into killers,' Grissom thought as he walked down the hall.  Love was seriously overrated.  Science, learning, roller coasters…all those things gave him pleasure, made him happy.  Hobbies; that is what people need, not ill-fated romances.  Grissom pushed out the double doors and into the cool Vegas night.  He turned to take a walk around the building, get his blood flowing.  When he reached the back of the building, he noticed that the lights in the back parking lot were out.  It was odd to suddenly be thrown into twilight.  It was not often one found oneself in the dark in Las Vegas; everything here was brightly lit at all hours of the night.  He glanced up at the sky and was surprised to be able to pick out a few of the brighter constellations.  'Orion,' Grissom though to himself, 'another tragic love story.  Greek myth says that he was so in love with the daughter of King Oenopion that it totally consumed him.  She of course would have nothing to do with him.'  Grissom let his eyes fall slowly back to Earth.  His thoughts wandered to Sara.  He wondered if his chance with her was now in the past.  Nothing left but a tragic love story from days gone by.  He wanted so much not to be caught up in such a place, but it seems that despite all of his precautions he was.  In his automatic self-preservation he pushed her away, afraid of what feeling something real would do to him.  Now, without even the friendship that they had forged to sustain him, he was lost.  Grissom sighed and continued his walk around the building.  There was no sense in dwelling on it; he could no more change the past than he could change the stars in the sky.  It was time to go back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**TUESDAY 7:03pm**

Sara got into her car and started the engine.  She was so tired.  She had hardly slept at all during her entire day off.  She had watched a lot of TV, and swam many laps in the pool.  She listened to her police scanner the whole day, too, but no call important enough came to pull her into the lab.  She was disappointed that she was stuck at home, but she couldn't exactly wish for crimes to happen; that would be a bit much.  She drove with the windows down, letting the evening air rush into the car, tangling her hair.  She loved the rush of the wind on her face as she drove down the highway.  It made her feel so free and alive.  She sipped her coffee as she flew down the road on her way to the lab.  Nothing like caffeine and a brisk wind on your face to wake you up in the evening.  If only solving other life problems were that easy.  She frowned as her thoughts again traveled to her lifeless relationship with Grissom.  'How could I have been so stupid to think that he would actually want to go out with me?'  As she had a million times before, Sara wished that she could start over with their friendship.  Maybe if she could she would be able to keep herself from ruining everything.

*******

Grissom tossed a pile of papers into the passenger seat of his car.  He had brought some paperwork home with him in a desperate attempt to get a little caught up, but it hadn't worked very well.  He had cleaned his apartment, watched a special on the History channel, and attempted to sleep.  During the short time that he managed to sleep he had the strangest dream about asking Sara out on a date and her turning him down, then he flew up into the sky and became another constellation among many.  He shook his head an attempt to clear away the memory.  Just another tragic love story.  Life was full of them.  As he pulled out of the parking lot and headed off to the lab, he wondered what life would be like if things had gone differently, if there was a happy ending instead of a tragic one for their story.  His heart wondered, but his mind overruled it.  'You can't change how life is, its just one tragic story after another.'  Maybe this pessimistic view sprouted from his job.  Seeing people only on the worst day of their lives would tend to make you see more tragedy than beauty.  At the thought of the word 'beauty' a picture of Sara flashed into his mind, as it always did when he let down his defenses.  His heart ached.  He knew he wasn't ready to feel love.  Love did strange things to people.  It turned them from normal humans into something frightening; all the crimes of passion he had ever investigated had proven that to him.  But perhaps there was still time to change the ending, to restore their friendship.  Perhaps.

*******

Two cars pulled into the parking lot at the same moment, one in each entrance.  The first car went to the far left side of the parking lot, the other parked on the far right.  Both drivers got out of their respective cars and looked up into the sky.  As if on cue, a shooting star made a bright streak across the night sky.

'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,' thought she.

'A wish,' thought he 'what should I wish for?'

"I wish for a new beginning," said she.

"I wish for a happy ending," said he.

Both turned to walk into the building, arriving at the entrance together.

"Hello Sara," said he.

"Hi Grissom," said she.

"How was your day off?"

"Uneventful."

They locked eyes, both thinking of their wishes, neither suspecting the wish of the other.  As they walked into the building, a familiar strained silence settling between them.  They each took one last peek at the sky, wondering if wishes on stars really do come true.


	3. Chapter 3

WEDNESDAY 8:07pm 

The night crew was gathered in the break room, waiting for assignments.  Grissom was late, as usual.  Nick and Warrick were entertaining themselves playing table football with a piece of paper folded into a triangle.  Catherine was on her cell phone, trying to convince Lindsey to listen to the babysitter and get to bed.  Sara was sitting on the couch, absently picking pieces of fuzz off the arm of the couch.  She just wanted to get going on a real case.  Last night had been slower than slow.  She was stuck in the lab all night with no new cases.  It was almost as bad as her day off.  The only real difference was that while she was in the lab at least she could do a little something.  She had spent her shift working on cases off the board, trying to find a new angle on an old case.  Nothing had really popped out at her.  And so the shift was a waste.  But now here she was again, ready to start another shift.  Hopefully tonight would bring a new case, a fresh case that she could dive into and make some real change.  She needed the distraction.  It would feel good to have something to really dive into.  Grissom walked into the break room, interrupting her thoughts.

"About time Griss, where you been?" asked Nick, as Warrick bounced the paper football off the side of his head.

"Ducking the sheriff."

Catherine closed her phone and turned to the group.  "So do you have work for us tonight?"

"Catherine and Nick, you get a drive-by shooting.  Warrick, I've got a B&E for you."  He turned to look at Sara sitting on the couch.  For a split second his voice caught in his throat, a hesitation to take the simple step that he was about to take.  "Sara, you get an apparent double murder suicide.  You're with me."

Sara looked up with a start; did he just say what she thought he said?  Did Grissom just put himself on the same case as her?  She felt rather like she had entered "The Twilight Zone."

"I'll grab my coat," she said, standing and walking quickly from the lab towards the locker room.  Together on a case, after so many weeks and months apart.  What made him change?  Why was he putting them together again?  Her stomach was fluttering and she could feel herself shaking all over.  She needed to sit down.  Does it mean something?  'This is silly,' she thought to herself.  'I have no reason to be this nervous.'  But she was.  She was beyond nervous.

Back in the break room, the crew was chatting as they gathered themselves up and set off to work on their respective cases.  When Grissom was alone in the room, he sat down at the table.  'What am I doing?  How can I possibly think that she and I will be able to work together again after so much time avoiding each other?'  He thought back to the way it was when she first came to Vegas.  They worked together almost as though they were one person.  What one of them missed at a scene, the other one caught.  When she was too involved in a case he was there to try and stabilize her.  When he got caught up in a case and his pulse skyrocketed, she was there to wipe away the anger and refocus him.  Would they be able to get back to that?  He hoped so.  He really didn't want things to be strained between them.  It was affecting the whole lab; they all knew something was amiss between them.  Of course, he had non-work motives to bring her back into his life and restore their friendship, but he pushed those thoughts away.  He hoped beyond hope that there was still a chance for them to be friends.  Tonight would be the first test, a case together.  From what he knew of the case it should be relatively simple, no overtime or double shifts to deal with, so they shouldn't have too much trouble.  But truth be told, he had never been so nervous in his life.


	4. Chapter 4

THURSDAY 4:19am 

Sara was in the lab, looking over the small amount of evidence for what felt like the millionth time.  Grissom had gone back to the scene to see if he could find anything else that they had missed.  The supposed open and shut case of the double murder suicide had turned out to be anything but.  All three victims were shot with one bullet, and each of the three bullets was shot from a different gun.  There was only one gun at the scene, so where were the other two guns, and who killed these people?  Sara's phone vibrated, distracting her from her thoughts.

"Sidle."

"Its Grissom.  I want you to come to the scene, and bring three body dummies with you."

"Time to reenact the crime?"

"Time to figure out who killed these people."

Sara hung up her phone and packed up the evidence before heading out to meet Grissom.  Working with him on this case tonight had gone amazingly well.  Most of the awkwardness seemed to be gone.  They were working together at their old rhythm, totally in sync.  It was wonderful.  It almost made hunting for killers fun.

*****

When Sara pulled up to the house, Grissom was waiting outside.

"Hey Grissom, ready to play dolls?"  Sara asked as she pulled the first of three dummies out of the back of her truck.  Grissom raised one eyebrow and looked at Sara.  "What?"  She asked.

"You just don't strike me as a 'play with dolls' kind of person."

"Sure I am.  I used to play with Barbie all the time when I was a kid.  Did you know that Barbie doll hair melts at about half the temperature of the Barbie doll itself?"

Grissom smiled and shook his head.  "Well, how about these dolls we shoot instead of melt?"

Sara grinned back.  "Sounds like a plan."

Once inside the house, Sara and Grissom both silently examined the crime scene before them again, trying to see the crime in their heads.  For the next three hours Grissom and Sara moved the dummies around and set out different scenarios as to who was shot in which order, and where the killer or killers would have been standing.  Both were so absorbed in the work of investigating that neither noticed the time passing, or the sun rising on the eastern horizon.

"The two women must have shot each other.  The way the bodies were facing, the distance that they were standing from each other, it all matches the evidence," said Sara.

"The man was standing off to the side, watching.  Then someone else must have walked into the room, saw what was going on, and shot him in the back, then cleaned up the guns and wrote the phony suicide note to make it look like a murder suicide."

Grissom and Sara both turned to look at each other.  "But why?" she asked.

"That, my dear, will be answered when we find the answer to another question.  Who?"  Grissom turned and walked out of the room and into the back yard, leaving Sara standing in the middle of the room with her mouth wide open.

'Did he just call me 'my dear'?'  Sara thought.  Her mind was going a million miles a minute, and her pulse was going even faster.  Just as her lightheadedness was taking over and making her feel like she was going to pass out, Grissom stuck his head back in the door.

"Sara, are you coming?"

She shook her head and turned to Grissom.  "What?"

"To the lab.  So far we only have a 'how.'  We need to look for my 'whom' so that we can find your 'why.'"  He grabbed one of the dummies and walked back out to the vehicles.  He couldn't remember the last time that he had felt so happy.  Just working in the same room as Sara was such a relief.  He just hoped that she felt the same way.


	5. Chapter 5

Friday 3:38am 

Sara and Grissom had managed to wrap up their case earlier in the shift, and now Grissom was supposedly doing the paperwork in his office (though Sara had a sneaking suspicion that         he was really working on some odd experiment or playing with his bugs).  He had put Sara on Catherine's case, doing some tedious research for her on the Internet.  Her eyes were going buggy from staring at the computer screen for so many hours.  How was it that when she was totally into a case of her own she could stare at the computer screen for two days without feeling it, but tonight she had only been on for a few hours and she already was itching to find something else to do.  She briefly wondered if Grissom might like some help on his paperwork, but decided that she wasn't that bored yet.  Paperwork was the worst.  And she wasn't so sure if she and Grissom were ready to work in such proximity.  A case was one thing, both got so wrapped up in the science that they could work in a 3'x3' cube with each other and be fine.  But paperwork is different.  Paperwork lets your mind wander and she was afraid of what might spill out of her mouth if she was around him without the distractions of hard science.  She had been known to put her foot in her mouth more than once around him.  She didn't want to do that again.  The last day and a half working with Grissom on the case had been really nice.  She was almost ready to call it a new beginning and put some faith back into their relationship, but she knew better than that.  Everything was going too well.  She just knew that there was some horrible change lurking just around the corner.  It was just the way that it worked with them.  They had a wonderful history of over speaking and bad timing.  Still, there was something about him that just kept drawing her back in.  He was magnetic.  At that moment her stomach growled loudly, distracting her from her thoughts.

"Hungry?"

Sara looked up to the doorway, startled.  There was Grissom, calmly leaning against the doorframe.  How long had he been standing there?  How could he sneak up on people like that?  Sometimes that man moved like a ghost, it was creepy.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!  You about gave me a heart attack!"

"I apologize.  I was working in my office and I thought it would be a good time to get something to eat.  I saw you working in here and I thought I would ask if you were hungry, but your stomach seems to have answered me before I asked the question."

Sara blushed, "What did you have in mind?"

"I was going to order some Chinese food, would you like me to order you some?"

"Sure, how about vegetable lo mien and fried rice?"

"Will-do.  I'll page you when it gets here."

"Ok."

Grissom turned and continued on his way down the hall.  'Chinese food?' he thought to himself.  'I'm not even hungry.'  The truth was that he had just been walking down the hall to check on some of the cases the rest of the team was working on when he saw Sara on the computer and he found himself stuck in the door.  He was just standing there watching her work for a full five minutes when he heard her stomach growl, and he made up the story about ordering Chinese food.  It's strange what you will say to cover up for yourself.  He certainly didn't want her to know he was just standing around watching her work.

**4:15am**

Sara was walking down the hall on the way back from the bathroom when she heard her name and turned.  Grissom was standing in the door of the break room.

"Would you like to have dinner with me?" he asked.

Sara felt her heart skip a beat.  That man sure did have a way with words.  She walked back to him and looked through the door into the break room where there was an assortment of takeout containers on the table.  Nick and Warrick were already inhaling the food.  Oh, everyone was having diner with Grissom today.

"Slow down, Nick, the food is not going to get up and run away if you take a breath between bites," said Sara, edging her way into the room.

"Mmrmff mrm," came the muffled reply.

"Excuse me?"

"I doubt you want to know," answered Warrick.

Soon Catherine and then Greg joined the diner party, and the group had a good time teasing each other and eating good Chinese food.  Nick came dangerously close to starting a food fight with Greg, but a stern look from Grissom stopped him before it could start.  At the end of the meal, fortune cookies were passed around.

"Your hard work will pay off at work, if you work hard enough," read Catherine.  "I guess that means I am supposed to get back on my case, huh?"

"You will soon come into great wealth," read Nick.  "Ooh, maybe I'll win the lottery and be able to quit my job."

"Yeah, right, you would miss us all too much," said Warrick, tossing a balled up napkin at Nick.  "Mine says 'You will soon meet a new friend who will change your life immensely.'"

"I see a promotion in your future," read Greg.  "Hey Grissom, you hear that?  So when do I get the raise?"

"When you get back to work," replied Grissom, as he started picking up the garbage and throwing it away.  The crew grumbled a little, but started gathering their things to get back to work.

"Hey Sara," said Catherine.  "What was your fortune?"

"I got the same as you, I guess that means I should get back to the computer lab," she said as she threw away her trash.

"How about you Grissom?" asked Catherine, turning her attention to him.

"Mine said to keep my mouth shut and my head down, and I may be able to make it through an entire shift without seeing the Sheriff."

Everyone filed out of the room, leaving Grissom alone in the break room.  He looked down at the crumpled fortune in his hand.  'Love is in the air.  Breathe deep and step forward' it said.  He sighed and walked back to his office.  It was just a fortune cookie, it didn't mean anything.

Sara walked into the computer room and sat down.  She pulled the crumpled fortune out of her pocket and read it again.  'Love is in the air.  Breathe deep and step forward,' it said.  She sighed and put it back in her pocket.  What if there was a cliff in front of her and when she stepped forward she fell off and crashed?  What then?  She shook her head and signed on the computer to get back to work.  It was just a fortune cookie, it didn't mean anything.


	6. Chapter 6

Saturday 2:21am 

Another night, another case.  Tonight it was a car accident.  A blue minivan was swerving around the road and plowed into another car.  The driver of the minivan was dead, as was the driver of the other car.  The only survivor was the passenger of the car that the van hit.  This would not normally bring in the lead CSI, but the driver of the minivan did not die from the accident.  He died from a gunshot to the neck, which had come straight through the passenger side window and went out the driver side.  Their job was to figure out who shot him, and why.  Warrick and Nick were each walking one side of the road, looking for evidence of the shooter.  Sara was talking to the lone survivor who was amazingly barely scratched despite the accident.  And Grissom was examining the cars, looking for anything that might give him a clue.  The shot looked clean, a straight through and through.  There was nothing in either of the cars that was jumping out at him.  He stood up and stretched and looked out at the rest of his team.  Nick and Warrick were quite a ways down the road, apparently not having found anything yet.  Sara was still with the woman that survived the accident, who was sitting in the back of an ambulance.  Sara looked oddly uncomfortable.  He knew she disliked dealing with people almost as much as he did.  Catherine was usually the people person of the night shift, but she was home with Lindsey who had the flu.  He wondered what Sara was thinking.  That would be an interesting superpower, mind reading.  It would make people watching even more interesting.

****

Sara walked over to the woman sitting in the back of the ambulance.  She was wrapped in a blanket and crying silently.  Her face was streaked with tears, but she wasn't making a sound.

"Hi, my name is Sara Sidle, and I work with the Las Vegas crime lab, could I ask you a few questions?"

The woman looked up with a vacant look in her eyes.  "Yes."

"Can you tell me what you remember about the accident?"

"I can't believe he is gone."

"I know this must be hard for you, I'm sorry for your loss.  I can only imagine what it must be like to lose your husband."

The woman looked slightly startled at the sound of the word 'husband.'

"He wasn't my husband, we worked together.  We were good friends once, and almost something more, but we never managed to get it together in time, and now all of our chances are gone."

Sara shifted her weight to the other foot, feeling more than a little uncomfortable at the woman's description of her relationship with the driver of the car.  It all sounded a little to familiar for her.

"Do you remember the accident?" she asked, changing the subject.

The woman shook her head.  "Not much.  I remember seeing headlights swerving, and I remember hearing myself scream, and the crunch of metal, and then nothing.  The paramedics said that I was conscious the entire time, but I don't remember anything anyway."

"That's normal.  Sometimes trauma makes our mind block out things that we don't want to remember.  Will you call us if you are able to remember anything later?" asked Sara, handing the woman her card.  The woman took the card, but continued staring at the wreck that was her car.

"I wish I could forget my mistakes.  I wish I could go back in time and change things.  I wish we weren't so afraid to be together.  I wish we had another chance," the woman said listlessly, more to herself than to Sara.

Sara walked away from the woman and into the dark on the side of the road.  This was too much.  Life was too short for regrets.  This woman had completely lost her chance to be with the man that she loved.  Sara wondered if she too had lost her chance, or if there could still be a new beginning for them.  She looked up at the stars in the sky and remembered her wish that she had made earlier in the week.  She wondered if wishes on stars really did come true.

The sound of a snapping twig behind her made her turn around.  It was Grissom.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he said apologetically.

"You didn't, I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"About life, regrets, second chances and new beginnings…"  She looked up at Grissom who was now standing beside her, looking up to the sky himself.  She wondered what he was thinking about.

"Sara," he said.  But just then Nick walked up behind them.

"Grissom, I got something I want you to look at," he said.

"Ok, I'll be right there," he said to Nick.  Then he turned to Sara and added quietly, "I'll talk to you later," as he put his hand on her arm and gave it a small squeeze.

As he walked away Sara looked back up at the sky and smiled.  Could this be the new beginning that she had wished for?


	7. Chapter 7

Sunday 5:30am 

Grissom was in his office, pacing back and forth.  He didn't know what the big deal was.  He and the rest of the night crew go to breakfast together a lot.  Well, not a lot, but at least every other week or so.  So why was he so nervous?  Well, probably because he wasn't intending to ask the entire night crew out to breakfast, just Sara.

"Am I really ready for this?" he asked himself as he continued to pace back and forth.  Was he really ready to change the ending of their story?  Could he turn it from a tragic love story to a happily ever after?

***

Sara was in the locker room, pacing back and forth.  She was about to take a big jump.  That woman from the car accident last night had really shocked her.  She didn't want to end up like that.  She didn't want to lose all of her chances.  Last time she asked him out she just about ruined their friendship.  But she had to try again.  She just needed to make it less like a date.  Breakfast instead of diner, it would be easier for both of them that way.  She just hoped she could create the new beginning that they needed without sending their friendship back into the toilet.  She took a deep breath and walked towards his office.

***

Now Grissom was sitting at his desk, with his head in his hands.  He wasn't ready for this.  He just couldn't change things between them.  It was too late for a happy ending, they were stuck.  Relationships just didn't work for him, that was just the way that life was.  Science was his thing, not people.  There was no way that he could make it work.  Besides, he was probably too late anyway.  She said that if he waited too long it could be too late; he just knew that he must have missed his chance.

***

Sara was outside his office door, but the door was closed.  She took a deep breath and knocked.

***

Grissom heard a knock on his door and looked up.  "Come in."

***

Sara opened the door and leaned on the doorframe.

"Hey Grissom.  How's the paperwork going?"

"Good," he said standing up and walking around the desk.  "Sara, I was wondering…"

"Grissom, would you like to have breakfast with me?"

He looked up startled.  "Yes," he said smiling.  "I'd love to."

They walked down the hall together in silence toward the parking lot.  Each was busy with their own thoughts.

'A new beginning,' thought Sara.

'A happy ending,' thought Grissom.

And they were both right.

~You see?  Wishes do come true.~


End file.
